
Unwanted vessels left to decay release fibreglass shards into the water, harming marine life. Steve Green – with his trusty van Cecil – is determined to clean things up
Steve Green, a boat engineer from Cornwall, was pulled over by the police just before Christmas. He was driving a decrepit-looking VW campervan and towing an even more dilapidated yacht up to Truro. He hadn’t broken any laws, but he admits that Cecil the campervan, which runs on donated chip oil from local pubs and has a crane and a winch on the front, “wasn’t quite what VW intended”.
Green (and Cecil) are on a mission to rid the beautiful hidden creeks of Cornwall’s Helford and Fal rivers of 166 abandoned fibreglass yachts, which are leaking plastic and toxins into the predominantly marine waters. Marine biologists have likened the thousands of shards of fibreglass they have found embedded in the flesh of sea-creatures in areas with wrecks such as these to asbestos, a substance known to have a noxious effect on humans.
Green uses a detachable crane system at the front of his van to move around bags of plastic after they have been weighed. Cecil is upholstered in recycled denim
Continue reading...Skincare videos are featuring children as young as two, Guardian analysis finds, prompting fears about the industry’s reach and lack of safeguards
Children as young as two are appearing in TikTok videos demonstrating their skincare routines, a Guardian investigation has found, raising concerns about the beauty industry’s reach and the lack of safeguards for child influencers.
The research found that 400 TikTok videos out of the 7,600 skincare-related posts analysed featured routines or advice presented by children believed to be under 13. At least 90 of these posts featured under-fives, including babies and toddlers.
Continue reading...Italy’s legendary goalkeeper on getting used to retirement, the decline of Italian football and why he blames himself for Zidane’s World Cup final red card
“I tear the gloves off my hands and my bare knuckles, reddened and soaked with sweat, shine in the neon light,” Gianluigi Buffon writes when he remembers leaving the pitch at half-time during the final game of his remarkable career, in May 2023. “I really feel dead inside. I am 45 years old, and around me many of my teammates walking in shorts towards the dressing room could easily be my children.”
The gripping and intimate tone of Buffon’s book, Saved, which opens with his last-ever game in a Serie B playoff for Parma, is matched by his warm and open character. The great goalkeeper played professionally for 28 years and his reflections are as moving as they are sombre. “Can you live without it, Gigi?” he asks. “No, I can’t … when you have outlived your youth, and the time when you feel strong and all-powerful has ended, and your muscles, joints and reflexes start to wear out, then it really is like dying.”
Continue reading...Prominent Maga bros have suggested the 20-year-old son of the US president should be called up this year. Why does this seem so vanishingly unlikely?
It can’t be easy being the youngest son of a man who compares himself to the son of God. Rather a lot to live up to, isn’t there? Still, Barron Trump seems to be taking it in his stride. Rather than rebelling and becoming a socialist, the 20-year-old is shaping up to be just like dad: Barron is already worth $150m, according to a 2025 Forbes calculation. That’s largely from World Liberty Financial, a Trump family cryptocurrency company he co-founded. (Reportedly it’s Barron who got the president into crypto.)
Barron isn’t just trading alt-coins. The university student has also launched a yerba mate brand called Sollos. (Yerba mate is a caffeinated herbal tea from South America). And he’s been engaged with politics behind the scenes. Barron is widely credited for boosting his dad’s most recent election campaign by connecting him to manosphere influencers such as Adin Ross and Theo Von.
Continue reading...Antony and Cleopatra? Exhausting. Lear? Magnificent but flawed. Hamlet? Limitless. For Shakespeare’s birthday, the Guardian’s former theatre critic ranks all the plays
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Continue reading...Peter Mandelson’s flaws were mistaken for credentials to represent Britain in the court of a rogue president
You can’t kill something that is already dead. New details about Peter Mandelson’s disastrous appointment as Britain’s ambassador to Washington can trigger more paroxysms of outrage in Westminster. They can sharpen the pitch of opposition calls for the prime minister to resign. They can reinforce the view among Labour MPs that Keir Starmer shouldn’t lead them into a general election. But they can’t produce consensus around a replacement, or invent a way to choose one without self-destructive factional feuding.
Labour MPs’ craving for better leadership has been finely balanced with fear of holding a contest and emerging with someone worse. There is no final straw yet to come because the camel’s back was broken months ago.
Continue reading...Exclusive: McSweeney summoned by foreign affairs select committee in rare step, as Mandelson vetting row continues
Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s former chief of staff, has been summoned before the foreign affairs select committee as the Peter Mandelson vetting row continued to undermine Keir Starmer’s premiership.
As MPs attempt to unravel the facts, McSweeney is to appear next Tuesday to respond to allegations that Downing Street put huge pressure on the civil service to approve his appointment as the UK’s ambassador to Washington.
Continue reading...State media says the ships have been transferred to Iran’s coast
If you’re just joining us, here’s the main news of the day. It is 9.30am in Tehran, 9am in Jerusalem and Beirut, and 2am in Washington DC.
Donald Trump unilaterally said he is extending the ceasefire with Iran at Pakistan’s request while awaiting a “unified proposal” from Tehran, even as the US military maintains its blockade of Iranian ports.
Trump made the announcement as ceasefire talks looked increasingly uncertain with a two-week truce set to expire on Wednesday. Both countries had said they were prepared to resume fighting if no deal is reached.
Trump said he would “extend the ceasefire until such time as [Iran’s] proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other”.
Trump later claimed in a Truth Social post that Iran is “collapsing financially” and was losing $500m every day that the strait of Hormuz is effectively closed.
Iran has yet to decide whether to join the negotiations in Pakistan, a foreign ministry spokesman said earlier on Tuesday, and will only take part if Tehran believes the discussions would yield results.
A container ship has reported being fired at by an IRGC gunboat, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said. The incident occurred 15 nautical miles north-east of Oman. The vessel sustained “heavy damage” to its bridge, the master of the ship said. All crew members were reported as safe.
Shares were mixed in Asia as markets waited to see if the US and Iran may resume talks. Brent crude edged higher to $98.51 a barrel, while US benchmark crude fell 0.4% to $89.29 a barrel.
One person was killed and two others wounded in an Israeli drone strike overnight on the outskirts of al-Jbour in Lebanon’s western Bekaa Valley, Lebanese state media reported. Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day ceasefire on Friday.
Since the war started, fighting has killed at least 3,375 people in Iran and more than 2,290 in Lebanon, the Associated Press reported. Additionally, 23 people have died in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and 13 US service members throughout the region have been killed.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened to prevent oil production in the Middle East if the Islamic republic faced attacks launched from its Gulf neighbours’ territory.
Continue reading...Severe heatwaves in commonly hot regions could leave farmers unable to work outside, with livestock mortality rates expected to rise
Extreme heat is threatening the world’s food systems, with farmers unable to work outside, livestock experiencing stress and crop yields falling, putting the livelihoods of more than a billion people in peril, the UN has warned.
Experts said food supply in some areas was being “pushed to the brink” by increasingly common and severe heatwaves, on land and at sea, in a major report written jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Continue reading...European Union presidency confirms preliminary approval of loan with formal procedures expected to conclude on Thursday
During his press conference, Fico also doubles down on his criticism of the incoming Hungarian government led by Péter Magyar, in a further sign that the relations between Bratislava and Budapest could change dramatically in the next few months.
Fico has been close friends with Orbán, often teaming up with him on energy issues, but it doesn’t look like this Slovak-Hungarian partnership will continue under the new management in Budapest.
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